A standard slicing machine such as described in U.S. Pat. No. 6,666,006 has a main housing having a horizontal conveyor surface and a subassembly in the main housing for cutting slices from a foodstuff and depositing them on the conveyor surface. A supply housing immediately upstream of the main housing carries a supply roll of flexible strip and mechanism for feeding the flexible strip downstream toward the main housing. A cutter on the supply housing can sever a sheet from a leading end of the flexible strip. A gripper above the surface is displaceable between an upstream position generally at the cutter and a downstream position downstream of the surface. The gripper is closable to grip the leading end of the flexible strip and openable to release it. A controller connected to the gripper, to the cutter, and to the supply periodically displaces the gripper between its upstream and downstream positions so as to pull the strip downstream above the surface, operates the cutter to sever a sheet from the downstream strip end generally when the gripper reaches its downstream position, and opens the gripper in the downstream position to drop the sheet severed from the strip down onto the surface.
This sealer further has a short conveyor forming an extension of the conveyor surface of the main housing, an upper heated annular die above the short conveyor, and an actuator controlled by the controller for raising the short conveyor and a slice stack thereon up into engagement with the die to fuse sheets underneath and on top of the stack together. Thus the system has on a separate housing, which also never directly contacts the foodstuff being packaged, all the parts for sealing the package made up on the middle main housing.
Such an arrangement is convenient in that it can produce a hermetically sealed package of freshly cut slices. Thus the machine operator can custom cut cheese, cold cuts, and the like and produce a very neat sealed package for the consumer right under the consumer's eyes.
The difficulty with this arrangement is that it is very bulky. It is horizontally rather long and complex, taking up valuable room at the work counter.